Risk Factors & Protective Factors & Health (DP IB Psychology)

Factors which may pose a health risk

• Risk factors for health can be social or dispositional

• Social factors:

  • behaviour of family and peers - e.g. if parents smoke, children are far more likely to start smoking in their teenage years

  • socio-economic status - poverty is associated with having to rely on cheap food full of carbohydrates, additives and sugar e.g. obesity and diabetes

  • housing - poor accommodation carries a health risk e.g. dampness and asthma

  • level of education - low levels of education may result in being less informed of health risks e.g. inactivity and heart disease

• Individual factors:

  • external locus of control - possessing an external locus of control means viewing health as something that is not under one’s control e.g. ‘I live near so many fried chicken shops, I can’t help but eat what they sell’

  • age - although ageing itself is not in itself unhealthy, old age increases the risk of illnesses such as cardiovascular disease 

  • genetics - some people may have a  genetic vulnerability to some diseases e.g. a genetic mutation in DNA can cause mitochondrial disease

Factors which may protect health

• Protective factors can also be divided into social factors and dispositional factors

• Social factors:

  • healthy lifestyle of family and peers - if one’s family and friends engage in a healthy lifestyle of exercise, good nutrition and no smoking, one is likely to follow suit

  • socio-economic status - good housing, healthy eating and access to leisure activities all protect health

  • education - school health programmes and a generally good level of education have a positive effect on health

• Individual factors:

  • internal locus of control - possessing an internal locus of control means viewing health as something that is under one’s control e.g. ‘I live near so many fried chicken shops but their food isn’t healthy so I’m going to avoid them’’ (linked to self-efficacy)

  • age - those aged 10-14 years old have the lowest rate of death worldwide from illness or accident (WHO, 2023)

  • genes - genes can also offer protection against some diseases e.g. the HLA gene has been found to boost the immune system

See the section on Dispositional Factors and Health for more examples of how individual factors affect health.

Young adolescents are at the age where their health is most protected

Evaluation of risk factors and protective factors and health 

Strengths

• Identifying risk and protective factors can inform organisations’ policies and also family and individual behaviour change

• The data identifying risk factors is partly taken from WHO surveys and those conducted by schools and health centres, giving it high construct validity and reliability

Limitations

• There are difficulties in isolating variables and controlling for extraneous variables when trying to identify risk factors and protective factors for health

• Much of the research into risk and protective factors has been conducted in the USA and therefore the results may lack cross-cultural validity

Which studies investigate risk factors and protective factors and health?

• Haslam et al. (2018) found a tendency to underestimate the importance of social factors for health

• Turbin et al. (2006) found protective factors were more influential than risk factors  in middle school participants from China and the USA

Haslam et al. (2018) and Turbin et al. (2006) are  available as ‘Two Key Studies of Risk Factors and Protective Factors’ – just navigate to the Risk Factors and Protective Factors and Health section of this topic to find them.